AUT INVENIAM VIAM AUT FACIAM

Meta, or, A taste from the trash

TODAY I ASKEWD THE ORGANIZING PRINCIPLE TO DISCUSS HOW NEWS HAS CHANGED IN MY LIFETIME. A CHILD WITH A STUFFED TIGER EXITED THE TRANSMOGRIFIER.

CALVIN: I’m Calvin and this is–

HOBBES:

CALVIN: You can ask him yourself!

HOBBES:

CALVIN: Tigers love tuna fish.

ME: Calvin, tell it–

CALVIN: We know our other name.

ME: –and I prefer it! Don’t fuck with Calvin and Hobbes! Making a Calvin not organized by “be Calvin” is — There’s the Calvin pissing sticker… And this, this!

CALVIN AND HOBBES ENTER TRANSMOGRIFIER. TWO SUITS EXIT. TWO SUITS EXIT. ONE SMOKES.

ME: WHO ARE WE?

JOURNALISM: Journalism.

NEWS: News.

ME: Same thing.

JOURNALISM: I am a practice, a calling, a service, the organizing principle of the nation, the check and balance of every branch of government–

NEWS: We’re all going to die! …OK, you’re finally looking at me! To determine who I am we’ll need a representative of both sides to weigh in and–

ME: You’re disgusting.

NEWS: Eventually. We’re all going to die eventually. You begin the sentence to begin the half-hour and mumble that in at minute 27-ish.

JOURNALISM: No I think she’s pretty with all that makeup! You want a nip — pretty boy or an ugly girl…

ME: Easy! …Yeah the drinking didn’t go anywhere. …Whoooo…

JOURNALISM: OK, so I discover, report, investigate and copy will fill out the rest, I report the facts and find the truth of the matter at hand. And I’m only staying as long as I’ve got cigarettes. …So you got that much time.

ME: Used to chain those things. Stopped my antidepressant and now — Now I’m thinking about reorganizing my principles.

NEWS: Your Journalism never was.

ME: It was a thing you lived up to as best you could by deadline.

JOURNALISM: Oh look I’m out of smokes–

ME: There were ten!

JOURNALISM: I’m done dressing you up so you can talk to yourself.

NEWS: The concept… If you weren’t so tired, maybe — No. No one can do Calvin and Hobbes but Watterson.

ME: It’s just that I miss them. And I miss you.

JOURNALISM: What is this — are trying — he’s trying to hug me! You want the other one!

ME: Stop. Oh my God I do not in any way, shape or form want that one!

NEWS: You can’t know for sure until representatives of the two controlling political parties weigh in.

ME: This is so fucking broad. Let’s put a pin in it. Shut it down.

JOURNALISM: Shut it down!

NEWS: Shut it down forever!

ME: One reference a few will get. One just for me.

JOURNALISM: It’s not a good movie.

ME: First time a movie really felt like a comic book.

NEWS: Graphic novel.

ME: No one ever says that. …And that wasn’t done — in American cinema, because Japan…

JOURNALISM: You get him to bed. I’m gonna transmogrify into screw this.